


For Her, For Retribution.

by SavageInkSpillage



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Masochism, Tentative forays into philosophy over blood and penance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9293993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SavageInkSpillage/pseuds/SavageInkSpillage
Summary: After the events of season 2, Bennet Drake goes missing yet again. As the weeks pass without sign of him, Edmund Reid begins to regret how he treated him. He begins to fear his grief might manifest in self-destruction again and he might wrest himself from the surface of the world before Reid can beg forgiveness, so... he starts looking for him. When he finds Drake, he finds all his worst fears confirmed.It's all he can do to aid him in the fight against his demons.





	1. A shattered state

 

When Edmund Reid sought out the dosshouse that’d once housed a friend, he found grime and waste and the wasting of a dozen lives in his wake. Any bed empty would be shortly filled; what memory opium and drink could not erase, the hardship and pain endured by the poor souls inside took care of; their lives were forfeit, the world a cruel and unforgiving place, and they did not know of any Bennet Drake. No trace of him remained inside, but then; barely any trace remained of those who lived there still.

When Edmund Reid found the boxing ring he believed his lost friend used to frequent, he did not see him there. No bill bearing his likeness, as known to Reid as his own, no name upon the air among the crowd. Different men fighting, bleeding for coin. They did not know of Bennet Drake either; some of the blood at their feet might have been his, but enough of it was theirs. Enough not to care about long gone fighters in favour of those in front of them.

Bennet Drake had managed to manufacture himself into a ghost; a stark outline in the memory of his friends and colleagues, a void where once was his loyalty, and his friendship.

Still, Reid kept looking. He would, until he found either the brother in arms he lost, or his next case. Both possibilities scared him witless.

If he found Bennet, _when_ he found Bennet, what would he say?

There were words he’d practiced. In front of a mirror, like the uncouth would-be lovers did in those infernal romantic plays. There, it’d be high drama; the resolution tucked under a swelling orchestral piece, loving forgiveness, a drawn out kiss to mark the crescendo. God, either no playwright had ever seen love with their own eyes, or he hadn’t. Maybe long ago, but its impression must have faded.

A poor lover, he. A poor friend. To Bennet, and to all others. A coward, arrogant, constantly leveraging the loyalties of others to make them act where he would not dare. This time, if Drake would have him, he would be different. Theatre be damned, he would be different. And maybe Drake would still leave, and be a distant friend, and he would get periodic letters as a small window into his new life.

But he’d know. He’d know that he still _had_ a life.

And… knowing would be better than this.

* * *

 

A real crowd, tonight. He waited, head bowed, the coarse rope stinging his wrists as it slid over them. The skin there had been burned, already; it was red, angry, and bled after every fight. Even so, he’d loyally returned to his post; The rest of him could not admit to any feeling.

His eyes went, left, right, scanned the already screaming crowd with a numbness that muted their sound, blurred their faces.

Such _passion_.

Such _feeling._

From where? Where was this great fire that fed these men? He’d been starved of it. Maybe he’d elected to reject warmth at first, but now, even baying at the hearth he felt nothing. It was sad, to meet his end like this. He supposed that would be the word of his past friends, when inevitably news reached them of the manner of his death; died on another man’s fists under the banner of a penance he could never truly earn. Tortured with his knowing consent; for sport, for a quick buck, for the enjoyment of the faceless many. Sad, they’d say. Senseless. Fucking pathetic.

Maybe when it happened, they’d drag his corpse back to that dead room he’d come to know so well, to be stripped of its secrets by that bloody American, pondered over by Reid… By- By his friend, who might not recognize what he’d become, when the time came.

Were lay the kindness? Was it kinder to spare his friend the grief? Or to… to give him closure on the whole saddening subject of Bennett Drake, let him eulogize someone vastly better than he’d ever been, let him mourn, let him come upon a headstone and sit beside it. Not another shrine in his quarters, not another part of his life kept in an unchanged state… just in case.

Bennet decided hope was the crueler option.

There he stood, the action about to commence; no face for men to know him by, no protection, not even a prayer. Just a man brought low by that insidious greed which had made itself master of all burrows like this. These houses of blood, suffering, and beneath that the simple promise of coin.

Every step toward this hole in the earth felt like a pilgrimage; arduous, but certain. Each time they beat him longer, harder, sent him away with slightly more money, and each time he returned. The brunt of the money he gave to some beggars as soon as he emerged back onto the street: he came for penance, more than pay.

Each time he dragged himself off the sacrificial altar with a broken body he vowed to return there until he died there because only death would assuage the guilt, only his life against hers would wipe away the debt and only in that shattered and final state would he be made clean.

Yeah… moments of clarity, he weaved gruesome poetry around it. Like that.

…but then his opponent stepped in front of him, the crowd swelled in a rousing cheer, the world was unfathomable and Bennet Drake was made senseless and afraid.

Blows started raining down on him. There was a count somewhere beyond his hearing, remorse somewhere in his opponent’s eyes: the pity a man showed a beaten dog dutifully come back for another hit. He did not see it. Only by the breaking of his ribs did Bennet Drake perceive the world, and even then; only dully.

Reid told him, hadn’t he? He’d taken enough. Enough to justify another murder at his word, at least.

When, finally, he felt himself unravel, he did so for his own sake. For her. For all the squandered promise in his wake.

“I’m sorry, my girl. _I’m sorry_.” he shut his eyes, cried. His head fell back against the wooden post with a thud that echoed through his being so viciously he thought, for a second, that it was her voice, still so displeased with him.

His opponent staggered for a moment; looked behind him, fist raised and in stasis. “The fuck do I do?” the brute inquired of his employer in a stage whisper. Not the greatest of men, but no careless slayer of another without sense left in him. Not _that_ wretched of a man.

“I’m not fucking paying out ’cause this bloke’s lost ’is marbles, alright? Go on!” by the flick of a grey tongue, the spectacle continued.

“Bella, please! I have loved you. You must know it. P-P-Please…”

If only his hands were free, he could caress her face again. He didn’t much mind the blood that clung to her still; he’d fared no better. A thousand cuts and bruises and fractures to atone for that gaping wound in her chest, the cruel sting of doubt that had wrest her from his grip… He’d told her, hadn’t he? He must have. But Bella was so distant, now. She wouldn’t go near enough, she wouldn’t look at him. He only wanted for the warmth of her, but she refused. She… she didn’t want him. She punched him. Over and over and over again, because he didn’t love her, because whatever he’d given her - even if he thought he’d given her the whole of him, even if he knew that he had - it was not enough. He did not suffice. He wouldn’t. And he knew that, but all he could do now was beg her, beg the ghost of her, to see love where she could not.

“Tell me you know! Please tell me you know, I’m sorry, I must have told you, I told you, I…” it repeated itself like a chant, all he could think to spill now that his blood, sweat and tears had been rejected so many times. He gave her his torment, and she just stood there with blood draining from her.

The whole event came to a halt, in that cacophonous manner things did when no official accord had been reached and each individual was left to decide just when they could take no more. One by one, they came to this point, and left.

The sport of it all was to guess how a strong man could be brought to his knees; if he sat there, kneeling, there was no game, and no enjoyment.

“No! What the fuck’s the matter with you, man!?” The ringleader grabbed his punching bag by the neck and shook him. He raised a fist, prepared to vent his anger at this most convenient of targets.

“Stand down! You will stay your hand against this man!”

Edmund Reid. Of all the boxing rings in London, of all the pits in the earth, he came here, now. After everything, there was some luck left for Bennet after all. Had he the wits to, he’d have smiled.

“Bennet!” Reid’s fingers cupped Bennet’s face and he tried to navigate the minefield of cuts and bruises to somehow arrive at tenderness. “It’s me.”

Edmund Reid looked at his friend. This familiar spirit caged in a broken body and a face too ravaged to recognize; his friend. His brother. Eyes blue, and dull, and afeared of the world. Did he even know he’d been saved? Did he realize his torment had been ended?

Reluctantly, Reid strayed from his side a moment to unfasten the rope around his wrists. He caressed the emerging welts there with his thumbs, all of him entrapped in a numbing sorrow that withheld him from speech and slowed his thinking.

How.  
Dear God, _How?_  
Whitechapel was not a kind place, of course he’d known that. All along; Where there should be sprawling epics written for each life to relay its triumphs and tragedies, Whitechapel was an amalgamation of short, sad stories filled with strife and pain without resolution, and without ever getting to the good bit.  
It chafed. It always fucking had. There was nothing so profoundly sad to Reid as a soul wrought from its earthly life in a shattered state.  
Now he held his friend against his chest, and there was no other way to describe it; a shattered state, for the best of men.

“Bennet, listen to me, my friend. It is imperative that you do. Do you comprehend me? Bennet?” Like a school teacher to a particularly dim child, but infused with ever more affection and worry. A long moment passed, Bennet blinked so slowly it seemed his eyes might remain shut against the sight of his friend. A moment of calibration later, recognition dawned on his face.

“…Edmund?” none other would regard him so kindly. “Are… Am I… you -“ hideously slurred, but still he sounded relieved. After Reid what had done to antagonize him, relieved?

“Yes, Bennet! Stay awake and I will see you free of this place, can you do that?” the inquiry went forth without much confidence. Drake’s eyes kept going in and out of focus; his face showing relief, anxiety, suspicion, sadness, depending on what he saw, and what he did not. She was still behind Reid, bathed in red, still suffering his indifference. “I… I… please don’t…” of course Bella didn’t heed him, she never did. Edmund, though, _he_ did. Tried to steal his gaze back, and touched his face. He was real. He was _actually real._

“Bennet… all will be well, my friend. None shall harm you whilst you find yourself in my protection, do you understand? We mustn’t tarry here, dear friend. Let us depart from here so you can be mended, come.” Reid tried to get Drake to rise.

“You’ve got the wrong man, i-inspector… there’s nought t-to be mended in me.” all of Drake felt heavy, and he did not budge.

“I know little of the causes you wish to martyr yourself for, my friend. I am ignorant of most that you’ve suffered, past and present, but _by God,_ man! I know you, Bennet, I have seen your hand in the good there is the world, and in my life. I know the worth of you, and it is _more_ than this. I _promise_ you, it is! I would not see your life squandered over some false sense of penance… you could spill every drop of crimson inside you and not see her returned to your arms or the burden made lighter… but I wish to help you carry it. _I will_. No more bloodshed, now… _get up_.” Reid tried again, and this time Drake made an effort to rise alongside him.

They stood for a second, interlocked in an awkward embrace with Drake largely incapable of carrying his own weight. Dizziness overwhelmed the older man, causing him to sway against Reid with such violence the inspector considered letting him return to his prone position on the floor.

“I’m so tired, Reid… she won’t leave me to r-rest.” and with these words, Reid suddenly had the full weight of him pressed against his body. He slowly lowered the battered, thin frame to the floor.

“Rest then, I have you.” the inspector did not comment on his other statement, he didn’t know _how_.

So Bennet Drake came to lay at rest while Edmund Reid wrangled a carriage, a messenger and another pair of hands with which to carry him, from the world.

He didn’t come back to himself until he’d been gently laid on the bench of the carriage. He kept his eyes closed, waning adrenaline taking the last of his energy with it. Wakefulness was far too much to admit to.

Nearby, Bennet felt the warmth of another. A large hand upon his, caressing it gently. Breathing, soft and somehow sad. A conversation of sorts; an anxious man going over an overwhelming amount of tasks in a very quiet voice. He’d start a fire, he said, put him up in the spare room, try to make him some broth to drink, Jackson would come to examine him, and whatever Reid was told to do, he would. On and on the list went, Reid’s fingers worrying over the edge of his bowler and checking Drake’s pulse in turn.

So they traversed the London streets, softly rocking over the cobblestone road all the way to Reid’s residence.

“E-Edmund?” Drake dared open his eyes a moment, smiling slightly. “Thank you.”

Before Reid could give reply, he’d been reclaimed by sleep.

They rode on.

 


	2. Almost Penance

Edmund Reid paced back and forth in the hallway of his own domain, passed a door, slightly ajar, a thin strip of light escaping from the confines of a sickroom. Then, he turned, and strode across again. Each strained, feeble breath from the man lain there only fueled his anger, only lengthened his stride, only made him ball his fists tighter and tighter until blood drew from crescent marks… he did not perceive it, its smell masked as it was against the smell of another’s, his suffering barely worth a mention when compared to the pain his dear friend experienced for the privilege of continued breath.

Even beyond consciousness, he was not free of pain.  
He still suffered.

Edmund didn’t matter. His intervention didn’t matter, his noble intentions, the months of searching, the men bruised and women left weeping in the wake of his relentless pursuit, and here this found man lay having to snatch his every next moment from the hands of the grim reaper.

And… Reid could affect nothing. He could sit beside him, utter futile reassurances Drake would rebuke if he could hear them. He could hold his hand, stop him writhing to and fro so frantically he might otherwise spill from the bed. He could… sit beside him, hold him with his hands in the few places they would not cause a surplus of pain, and feel the quaking of his broken body against his, so close he could hear the bones inside shift and grate against one another. God, even imagined, he could not stomach the sound.  
He could not bear to do any of that. He couldn’t just… wait, and hope, and pray to the God who cared so little about his Whitechapel and whom he might love within it… there had to be more.

Wasn’t that why he ever became a copper? A man made of more than hope and waiting, anxious to be the one to enact what must be done, these small acts to the betterment of the world. Noble, and busy, and always in motion.

Always in motion, and so he passed the door again, that haunting sound growing louder when he neared the cracked portal. At the very least he still lived.  
There was that.

Still, there had to be _more!_

To what aim had he lived these months in desperate fear, flitting from crack in the earth to hole in the wall and from dosshouses full of damned souls into the dens of men void of them? This vice upon his heart, drawn tighter and tighter still, he carried so bravely with the thought it would ease if he found Bennet Drake, if he led him back out of the darkness and into the light, then they both could breathe, then they both could consider their penance at an end, and then they could rest. Then _he_ could rest, finally, Lord, _finally rest_.

Bennet Drake, in from the cold, pulled from the void, and Reid was still so goddamned tired, still so heavy and so afraid and now the vice threatened to still his heart, shatter it, end him, end them both. The light did _nothing_. It illuminated what was wrong with Drake, so many things, gleaming sweat and contusions and tears of anguish he could not deny even as he slept, and Reid could do nothing. He was dying, and Reid could do nothing. He was dying, and all Reid could do was look on, and barter with whatever demons had seized his friend to leave him longer, this great man, this dear friend who had gone off into the wilds of London to repent for imagined sins and all but succeeded to repay the debt with his own life. Reid couldn’t _do anything_ about it. He was going to lose Bennet…

_God damn it!_

The weary detective drove his fist into the wall with a force that surprised even him, a sound so loud that just for a moment it drowned out Bennet’s breathing and he couldn’t tell whether the silence frightened him, or relieved him beyond measure. He could finally hear himself think again, he could finally draw a breath without already starving for the next, and from beyond the window he could hear people talking in soft tones out on the street.

Lives continued, gently.

Laughter, then, and suddenly Edmund found himself crying. Or maybe he had been, all this time, but only now did he bow his head and succumb to it. He gathered his now broken fingers against his chest, against a heart rent apart by anguish, and fled back into Bennet’s sickroom.

He fell, clumsily, onto his knees. Nose in the bedding, words muffled against the mattress, and with the hand he’d just abused, he gathered his friend’s head against his own. Crown to crown, their blood mingling in the cuts on the prone man’s face, the detective started sobbing.

“Please, Bennet…” his hale hand grabbed one of Drake’s and held on as if he might live by that tether. And he might. For all Reid knew, he might.

“Please… _don’t_.” he choked, gagged, and for all he knew they might drown together this night, on tears and on blood.

“Stay, Bennet.” said Edmund Reid quietly, desperately, and followed his own advice.

When Captain Jackson arrived, he only just saw his superior pick himself up off the floor, still red-eyed and still with Drake’s hand locked in his own.

 

* * *

 

“Jesus…!” the tableau was enough to propel the surgeon up the stairs and into the room before the disheveled Englishman could explain himself.

The sight of the tarnished sergeant was enough to silence even him. He faltered, drew back a step, let his eyes assure him the man yet lived, then surged forward with his name on his lips.

“ _Drake!?_ ” A pulse within him still, he quickly asserted. A thready heartbeat, the shadow of a fever ready to pull him into dusk, broken bones… many of those, mainly within the chest area, the nose too, but it had been set. Twice. Nothing to scar the back of him, lighter bruising to where his viscera were easily harmed, a dislocated arm… rope burn? Fuck.

Boxing then, but not just boxing, a game of torture. A game he consented to, a game he came back for. Fuck.

’Course he’d seen it played before, it was the kind of thing you grew used to ignoring as long as you could tend to your own vices wherever it may be played. Mostly for show, when he’d seen it. Not much attention to the face, no liver shots, no blows to the kidneys… painful, sure, but nothing that couldn’t be endured.

This… well, Drake must’ve been in for one Hell of a long game.

“Jesus, Sarge… why didya keep comin’ back?” for all the pretense of distaste between them, Jackson was a man horrified at the suffering before him, and despite what he might’ve said, what false vitriol might’ve spilled from him, his hands were tender.

“I got ya, buddy.” his hand ghosted over the still trembling man’s forehead, then touched it briefly. For every tortured noise torn from the back of his throat in the next half hour, Jackson repeated those four simple words.

It didn’t take long to realize he wasn’t equipped to handle the carnage before him, so the good Captain started to compile a list in his head of what he might require and what hole he might coax it out of at this time of night. Ah, by the grace of a handful of charm and one hell of a resourceful wife, you could salvage just about anything. Perhaps even Drake.

What little he’d brought along in his bag was spent on lesser cuts, the abrasions on his wrists, and Reid’s bloodied hand.

“Half of those injuries are old, Reid… you’re gonna have to tell me exactly the state you found him in, or we could be in trouble.” Jackson pinned the bandage in place around the DI’s wrist.

“Trouble? Of what kind?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Reid… a man this banged up doesn’t just saunter back into the ring to await more. He _couldn’t_  have, and you know it, so either someone dragged him back there or he bolstered himself somehow.”

“Don’t be absurd! He would not _debase himself_  like that…! I would take care not to lay insult at his feet when he cannot defend against it, Captain!” Reid stood, hands balled into fists again.

“It ain’t insult! I ask not so I may affix judgement to the answer but so that whatever it is he may have taken doesn’t skewer the potency of whatever I administer so much that it’ll be my hand that ends him!” Jackson rose as well, his body drawn close to Reid’s, face contorted in a snarl. “I am _not_ going to risk killing him because you care more about his good name than his survival.” he growled.

“Jackson, you _know him_.” tried Reid, desperate. Even with Drake in his direct line of sight, not 3 feet away, he could feel him slip away again. More lost now than he was when nobody could find him.

“I _don’t_ , Reid. I barely knew the man who left us those many months ago and that sure ain’t the fella you brought back. Neither of us knows this man, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight. That’s the only reason I ask, alright? The only reason.” his hands were raised, palms flat, trying to placate the detective and get back to the job at hand. If the army had taught him anything, it was the folly of wasted time.

A shift, behind them. A plaintive moan. “…c-cocaine.” said Bennet Drake, sounding as though he could barely distinguish this plane of existence. At once, the argument was forgotten and both men found themselves knelt beside his head.

“How much?” Jackson’s hands came up to cup Drake’s face, that his eyes might not wander now that they were open. Reid was angry, and bereft, and all of him ached to ask why, but he could see that the American’s eyes were still gentle, and there lay no judgement on his face… so, perhaps, he should take his place in this conversation at another time.

“E-Enough for the walk th-there.”

The walk there, but not back.

“So… it was supposed to be the end, is that it?” the Captain spoke as though it didn’t faze him, but a tremor lurked beneath his calm demeanor. Inside of him, he’d gone cold. _Jesus, Drake._

“Yes.” came the short reply. Reid felt as though his legs might fold beneath him, in the event of which he’d probably not get up again.

“Well… you’re still with us?”

“It didn’t… s-she couldn’t… I…” his end that never was; a moment in a deep dark crevice, filled with so many sorrows and so much regret Bennet couldn’t give voice to it now. He gathered himself, and on a quarter of a breath he tried again:

“I think I’ve m-made a mistake, Jackson.” his head fell back against the pillow, what little strength he’d managed to recover gone like a sliver of ice against an open flame.

“Are you gonna fix it?” said the American, a wealth of hope evident in the words. _Are you going to commit to life?_

“I will.” came a voice Reid remembered, with embarrassment, and regret, and certainty.

“Good.” Jackson clapped him on the shoulder gently, straightened his covers out, and by the time he’d made it to his feet Bennet had fallen asleep again.

“You should have taken him to a hospital, Reid.” he wasn’t angry anymore. Not now. But still, they were but one surgeon and a policeman with the weight of a man’s life on their shoulders.

In the quiet of their hard won peace, Edmund Reid wrestled down the indignation that arose in him, the possessiveness, his own faulty sense of ownership of this problem. And of Bennet.  
“I… I know, Captain.”

They looked each other in the eye, then nodded.

Like it or not, they were bound to one another in this endeavor.

* * *

 

Reid could’ve handled this better, but fuck it. Maybe Jackson understood. He made a list of all he might need, pooled his funds together with the damnable Englishman, and left.

“I don’t think he’s going to wake up again any time soon, but if he manages it; you keep him calm, wait for him to pass out again. It’s not pretty, but trust me when I say wakefulness holds nothing for him now. Just… hold fast, okay?” Jackson’s hand squeezed one of Drake’s shoulders gently, and in withdrawing it he left it to linger on one of Reid’s. Hold fast, indeed.

Before he heard the door shut downstairs, Reid had already taken his previous position. He waited there, on his knees, for the whole hour it took the Captain to find his way back to them.

A tangle of bandages and splints, a cautious dose of morphine in his veins, newly clean, and he and his newly appointed nurse thought they might recognize some part of Bennet Drake again.

Then Jackson stepped back, raked an anxious hand through his hair and looked at Reid. His mouth opened once, twice, no sound escaped. His hand twitched, aching for a cigarette, but even he had enough tact to refrain from smoking in a sickroom. Much less one containing a patient with lungs so compromised already… his eyes met Reid’s again. Even now, it was evident from his face he’d been crying… even now, Jackson wasn’t about to bring that up.

“Now we wait.” intoned Edmund, darkly. He sat on the floor with his head against the bed, and watched night crawl past the window.

Jackson sat leaning back in a chair, and every so often he got up, checked Drake’s vitals, sat down again.

“How do I… how do I mend this, Jackson?”

“I don’t know, Reid. You and him are gonna have to figure that one out together.”

“If he lives.”

“Yeah… if he lives.”

They remained there, exhausted themselves, almost killed each other for the fraying of their nerves, almost lost Bennet to fever, but...

He lived.


	3. Where the true warriors go

 

Slowly, without realizing it at first,  Bennet found himself cast out of slumber. 

All those perilous dreams, at an end. 

He’d thought, at times, that his heart had been found clear enough to earn him passage into heaven. Whatever stood in judgement seemed blind to the glaring faults of his nature, perhaps as much a fool as the hapless creatures it’d set upon the earth. 

But of course, that didn’t last. Bella’d find him there, too. 

The water to slake his thirst wouldn’t stay in his gut, and he’d vomit until there was none of him left to dribble down his chin. The kind words, the gentle apparitions at the edges of his vision, would turn into screaming critters that clawed at him, held him down, droned incantations into his face until he knew himself cursed. He would be clean and carefree in one moment, and in the next, he’d be wracked with agony with the sheets shamefully soiled and entrapping him there, in that Hell he deserved.

The blood that coated him, sometimes, out of nowhere. The blood he knew to be  _ hers _ . He deserved all of it, and sometimes she watched him repent. Sometimes Bella was stood there, rotting away slowly, with maggots feasting in her delicate flesh and eyes bulging and then gone. Chest concave, then bloated, then draining and empty. 

Still,  Bennet looked. 

When it made him sick, when the oppressive smell of rot and decay drove him to despair and to breathe felt like a trespass against the ghost of her, he still sought her out. He still held her gaze until her eyes drained of their fluid and hung limply out of their sockets. 

Because… this Hell, it wasn’t his, it was  _ theirs _ . They were going to share everything, just as they’d sworn to on their wedding day. United, until they were forgotten; entwined until they both fell away into dust.

Of course, he’d thought himself dead. A life ended on the floor of a boxing ring, a body for none to mourn. 

Now, he was awake, reluctantly resigned to life, and frankly with no clue how to account for that.

It hurt, to be alive. More than he remembered. 

And even when he found no wife stood over him in a macabre vigil, the smell of sickness and blood remained, like a shroud slung over the room.

Sickness… and blood? 

_ Whose? _

God, he was tired. 

A noise scraped along his throat, borne of confusion and the profound fear of a man so lost he could not tell whether this, too, might all be a part of some divine punishment.

“…That you, Sarge?” came the voice of Homer Jackson, gliding neatly around the corner with Edmund Reid in tow. Had Drake been sound of mind, he could easily have guessed that they’d been just downstairs, discussing matters too delicate for a convalescent. He might even have guessed the topic, and thus known why even the habitually careless American now approached him so cautiously.

Drake tried to give acknowledgement, but failed. Speaking was beyond him for the moment.

“Hey… you with us?” 

They both advanced, slowly, as though any move could trigger the most primal part of his brain; make him fight, make him flee. He wanted to, of course, but he couldn’t. A man with no body to command did not fight, a man with no place in the world did not flee.

“W-Wh’re…” Drake managed to croak, fear in his eyes.

“You are in my home, Bennet. Rest easy.” A hand sought his, bandaged digits over bandaged digits, and he almost went back to his slumber.

“I can’t let you go yet, Drake. It’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to talk, so… let’s have a little heart to heart, shall we? Tell me my name.” Jackson appeared at the side of the bed, face open and earnest.

“ ’ _ Merican _ ,” came the answer, a weak chuckle issuing forth in response.

“…Well, it ain’t inaccurate, I can give ya that much. C’mon, Drake, the real deal. Can’t go around letting people off easy.”

“H’mer Jackson,” coughed the convalescent.

“There you go! Gold star for you, my friend. Now, if you could just name the fine gentleman next to me I’ll leave you to your beauty sleep.”

“Edmund Reid.” Drake rolled his eyes and had to fight to keep them open.

“You’re on fire today! How’re you feeling?”

The question was innocuous enough in its design, but Drake couldn’t account for it. It was an easy enough thing, wasn’t it? Take inventory of the miseries of his body, spew some satisfactory answer to curb the Captain’s questioning, go back to sleep. Dream again of his decaying spouse, of purgatory, of what he deserved, of the weight of his heart bending the scales. But then, if one’s mind was affixed to endless self-recrimination, still lodged in an afterlife where it did not yet belong, then how was he to even feel his body? 

How was he to feel  _ anything _ ?

Numb, he almost said. Confused, he almost said. Angry, scared, frightened, tired. That showed in his eyes, in the tightness of his muscles, tendons taut like bridge cables under his skin, his ghostly pallor. He didn’t say that either. 

He almost said nothing at all.

“Alive.” came the word. The only hard truth of his circumstance, filled with wonderment and sorrow and regret and gratitude:  _ Alive.  _

“Good. We will see to it you remain so.” Edmund’s hand squeezed his, gently, and just when Drake thought it safe to seek his refuge in slumber once more, he shifted closer. 

“Sir… You…  _ Your face _ !” a black eye adorned the inspector’s face.

“Think nothing of it, Bennet.” he soothed, and he smiled. 

He could still feel the perils of that night echo through the bruised flesh, the way Bennet had been so sick with fever he lay writhing in his bed, exclaiming as though the wards of Hell themselves now crowded his vision. 

He wasn’t responsive, he didn’t see them, or hear them. So of course, when he inevitably managed to nail Edmund squarely in the face, he forgave him, because… he wasn’t himself: only raving, only afraid, only fighting. 

Then, of course, he fell into stupor and seemed only dead.

That, Edmund could not forgive.

He could forgive his anguish, the way the urge to destroy himself sometimes manifested in fits of aimless despair where he and Jackson had to pin his limbs down and attempt to soothe him whilst shouting over him to be heard. It wrecked him, wrecked them both, but Edmund forgave him there. Even slumped to the floor and spent and hurting, he found himself light and uncaring in the face of anything but Bennet’s death. 

When stupor came, when his chest moved so scarcely he was, for a few moments at a time, both alive and dead in Edmund’s mind, that’s when his temper flared.

He’d seen it before, of course: self-killing. 

But never before had he felt it this deeply; never had it  _ tainted _ his every thought, to now feel and live like the weeping child beneath his mother’s swaying ankles and hope against hope that she might shirk her noose and take his hand once more. And it angered him. He understood, now, how deeply Bella had scathed her husband in her last moments of life, but he also understood that Bennet had been… methodical about the affair. It had taken him months, he had availed himself to cocaine, thrown away his identity and sold himself to suffering. Prolonged his end. Made sport of it. 

It was  _ perverse. _

And… as Reid’ had been sat there, mourning the stranger in his home who was either dead or alive depending on the angle of the light or the alignment of the planets, he found himself thinking. Maybe he’d made himself an accomplice to the sordid ordeal; by saving him, by searching at all. 

Maybe mercy was a quiet death, there in the company of former friends. Maybe… he should give him that. 

Instead of forgiveness, instead of hoarse, soothing words, or tears. 

A dose of morphine and a prayer.

But… he’d stayed his hand. And now his face smarted, and his friend was alive, and he smiled, and told him not to think of what he’d done or what he’d said or what he’d seen. He had not gotten rid of the syringes he’d lifted out of the good surgeon’s bag while he slept. He kept them, and though it appeared he held Drake’s trust at least, he could still do murder, if he wished. He could still lift him from this life, if he wanted it so.

…And Bennet just went back to sleep.

_ God, it was fucking perverse! _

* * *

 

 

Reid retreated from the bed, still tense, and let his eyes seek Jackson where he remained by the bedside, checking his patient’s vitals again.

“Captain?” his voice trembled, for still he held the hand of the man he so nearly killed. 

“He’ll be alright, Reid; He knows himself, he knows us, and the last embers of fever are dying as we speak.”

Many days had passed in silence, every word barely above silence and wrought with tremors. Now, finally, the good Captain sounded assured. 

Would that Reid could share that feeling, would that his worry had shifted just the slightest amount since he’d first lain Drake upon the bed.

“It is not his physical recovery I draw into question at this date, Captain. The embers of fever are dying, as you say, and only when they have truly gone out may we wade into the ashes and see for ourselves what remains of his mind.” Reid turned away, tore his gaze off Drake’s face. 

Many times, when his eyes had been open, he found himself staring into them.

He hoped he might see… a renovation, behind them. A ruin rebuilding itself so its former glory might once again be attained. But he didn’t. He saw fever, and fear, and the same shattered remnants of Bennet Drake he’d so desperately tried to hold together when he’d cradled him on the floor of an illegal boxing ring.

If returned health couldn’t remedy that,  _ then nothing would. _ This whole exercise would be futile, his money wasted, his energy spent… and Bennet would still die. 

For every moment he could be guarded, every time either Reid or Jackson were there to sooth his harmful desires long enough to keep him alive, there would be a moment where Bennet stood alone. Where he’d manage to shake off his chaperones, and still die.

The syringe burned inside Reid’s pocket.

“He’s got a shot, Reid, that’s a Hell of a lot more than he had before you found him. You have to let him take it.”

Their eyes met, then. The Captain’s gaze only strayed to where Reid had stashed his contraband for a second at most, but it was enough. 

Reid started, caught. 

Sat still, waited. Almost apologized, almost reached for it. Almost left.

Jackson just… met his eyes, and didn’t look away. “...I told you you needed to work this out together, and I suggest you do. You’ll be fine without me now, I reckon.” he smiled then, reveling in the Inspector’s misery even as he condoned his actions.

“Jackson?” 

Reid called after the man, an apology in his eyes and his posture.

“ _ Thank you _ .”

“Don’t mention it!” said the good surgeon, halfway down the stairs with a cigarette in his hand ready to be lit. He emerged onto the street as either a medical man deprived of supplies, or as an accomplice to the murder of the very man he’d tried so hard to save.

That night, Jackson closed his eyes and thought of his time in the army, of the crazed and shellshocked wretches who’d had the sense blown out of their skulls. All they wanted to do was destroy themselves, over and over and over again.

He remembered a General; a once good and proud man so perverted by the war he sought his own end and delighted at the thought of bringing all his subordinates with him to the afterlife.  _ Valhalla _ , he said.  _ Where the true warriors go.  _

God, Jackson must’ve patched the loon up about five times. 

Well,  _ six. _

But the sixth was different. That time, two of the General’s subordinates died whilst he did not. He lived. And Jackson remembered him there, on a cot, in a tent, next to the lifeless bodies of two men who deserved a damned sight better than this. Complaining about pain, complaining about being alive, complaining about the Godawful inadequacy of his remaining men; men with the sheer  _ audacity _ to live on. 

And then the loon asked for a painkiller.

Jackson, being a good man, obliged him.

The General’s death came as so little of a surprise no one questioned it. All Jackson felt as a result of his actions was the covert gratitude of the soldiers made to serve the man, now once again as safe as any other man at war.

  
Jackson recalled their faces and fell asleep smiling.


	4. Baptism, Rebirth, Relief

Reid sat at the window, far removed from the bed that held his friend, only periodically glancing over at him.

He did not station himself at the bedside, nor did he keep his eyes trained on the mound of blankets, this unfamiliar personage so quiet and so very polite and seemingly grateful… not Bennet Drake.

Bennet, his dear friend, he’d earned everything he’d ever owned, every ounce of status he’d gleaned from the world by way of gritted teeth and knuckles torn. Bennet Drake would care to fight. Do _something_ , at least.

So, now, a week removed from Jackson’s departure, Reid sat at the window. It _wasn’t_ a bedside vigil, nor the man beside him Bennet Drake.

Reid heaved a sigh, and crossed over to the bed. He sat down on the floor, his back braced against the mattress. “Bennet? I-… when I began my search for you many months ago, I- I had an accord, with myself; that I would not force you into any situation you did not wish to partake in. I would simply rescind my claim to you, aid you onto your next path, however divergent it might be from my own, and then… leave you to it, I suppose. I told myself I could be… content, with the knowledge that somewhere you yet drew breath. I rehearsed what I might say, too, like some maiden on the cusp of professing great love.” Reid laughed, here, a fractured thing more breath and tears than humour.

“I suppose that I am.” A tear escaped him and he paused to ensure none other would join it afore he’d said he’s piece. The mound shifted, as did the air, and somehow Edmund knew this meant he was heard.

“I am, and so I shall profess my love: You were a brother to me when all else fell away, and when I found myself at rifle’s end without a means of defense the mere sight of you kept me from fear. And I loved you. I loved you, and I used you, and in the many ways I guided your hands where they would not naturally have gone and mine would not dare, I committed a trespass against the very core of you I do not expect forgiveness for; I allowed myself to infringe upon your very soul, and cared not for the havoc I wreaked therein until you were but a memory and I a lonely fool… But I love you, Bennet. Still. Always. For all the evils I carried into your life, all the times I defiled your morals because I arrogantly considered my own to be a far superior substitute… I… I shan’t force your hand again, old friend. You may languish in these rooms, a man made null, if you truly wish it so. Or you may take what is offered and rebuild yourself, flee from my sight once more.” For every word that spilled from him, off the tongue so long caged fueled by a sadness long denied, Reid grew colder.

His words slowed, grew indistinct, his voice skipped over and gave up, much like he wished he could, but he persisted. He had to say it. If Bennet Drake was to die this night, he had to say it:

Even a man made null deserved a eulogy, and what luck he might attend the rehearsal.

“You don’t have to stay, Bennet. You… You may die.” Before Reid could take it back, because he longed to even before he said it, and once retracted he’d keep the noxious words caged inside him until the very end, regardless of their truth, he stood. Walked quickly across the room, never looking back, never facing Bennet, and retrieved a hidden syringe from its shelter. He took it, and the one he’d kept upon his person ever since his act of crime some weeks past, and set them down on Bennet’s chest.

Trembling fingers, eyes turned ever downward, silent now, after everything. Silent, and crying, and terrified, Edmund stood there.

So engulfed in his own misery, it was all he could do to keep his knees locked to guard against the savage pull of gravity.

And then, Bennet took his hand.

“You mustn’t hurt yourself so, Edmund. You were forgiven. This whole time, you were forgiven,” the man spoke, softly, so kindly. Even thin and pale and barely above broken he seemed, to Reid, the very best of men.

“I do not deserve it.” For all he did not believe himself worthy, his hand gripped Bennet’s ever more tightly; a severed connection restored. _Finally._

“Perhaps not, but the decision remains mine. I was never angry at you, Edmund. I… I suppose I hadn’t the time,” Drake laughed. The entire damnable event seemed so void of humour he would either descend into tears soon or laugh himself witless. As it was, mirth kept him slightly too long, but eventually he stopped. Even that brief window into the unhinged state of him, Drake could not abide happily. His gaze braved the outer edges of Edmund’s face but… he had not the heart to look him in the eye.

They were talking, and after weeks in anxious silence that was a wondrous thing indeed, but not _to_ each other as much as _at_ each other. Still, it was what they could mutually manage, and so it seemed enough.

“Bennet…” Reid’s eyes lifted, face betraying a tremulous courage he willed himself to feel

.“ _…Why_?”

The word lingered on, a door to a great many misfortunes kept shut only by a few failing latches. Bursting, _teeming_ with demons inside, and yet, Reid wanted nothing more than a glimpse. That it might forsake him and haunt him forever, he cared not. If he could confront the spectre at the centre of Bennet’s festering hurts, he may yet keep him: Recall him to life. Make him wish for more than a mattress to cushion his form whilst with each second he slipped further from the living world.

For almost half an hour, nothing more was said. The syringes remained on Bennet’s bandaged chest; moving up and down with every breath he took.

The glass and the substance inside became infused with the heat of his living body, and somehow this came as an offense to Reid: that the articles might leach now what they could take later. But he said nothing.

He merely sat still and hoped that the warmth of Bennet Drake would not be thieved from his frame.

And then, when Reid looked over, he saw that same frame, shaking. Bennet’s hand grasping the morphine so tightly the glass might shatter and Edmund would be allowed his breath back.

“Bennet…” Their hands touched. Edmund moved nearer until he was close enough to cradle him, and… _didn’t_. He remained in stasis there, just inches off of compassion.

“You mustn’t ask me _why_ , Edmund. You mustn’t…”

Though dark days they had braved together, Edmund had never seen Bennet cry. Not like this:

A fracturing akin to a fishing boat torn asunder in a storm: groaning, growing smaller with every piece stripped off until there was nothing left, until it cost more to salvage than it did to rebuild, and so the effort would not be worth it. But how could Reid _ever_ have thought that of his friend? That to salvage him would not be _worth it_ ? It would be. It would _always_ be, so he grabbed Drake and held him close. Nothing more would be stripped from him now.

All they had to do was stay afloat until the storm passed. Reid could do that. He’d keep him above water for as long as he needed, cared not for the added cost to himself; life would always be worth fighting for. He could not idly submit his friend to death itself and still call himself a protector of Whitechapel's wretches. Who would he keep, if not Bennet Drake? Who would he fight for, if not the man who had so oft entered the ring on his inspector's behalf?

“I must, you _know_ I must; how can I settle for the sight of only your pain and not its cause? I am your friend, Bennet. That is why I must ask.” Edmund’s tears began to fall.

Neither could get the mask of indifference to sit on their face again, and so this moment lasted.

Two men awash in the sadness and cruelty of everything; so long estranged to now be joined again by a deep understanding of grief, loss, and just how much the universe fixed to take from men of their make.

“It was my fault, Edmund. I killed her. I…” Bennet spoke with undeserved conviction, voice mangled by all he thought himself guilty of.

Reid held him tighter, his own mind affixed so soundly to the contrary he could only growl into Bennet’s hair. “You did not. You did _not,_ Bennet. Her tragedy was her own. You cannot claim the guilt and hope your martyrdom eases whatever she felt before she passed. The past has been set, you can’t… she is outside of your protection now: you must only hope she feels joy, where she is.” with every utterance, red curls crowded Edmund’s vision, and he so clearly remembered the freckles on her sun kissed face, the spring in her step as she boarded the ferry with her hand in his… oh, darling Mathilda. Would that he’d found these words sooner, that he might still have a wife. Of course, they were far easier to get off his tongue than to take to heart… one day, perhaps.

The evils of martyrdom, indeed. He only hoped his Mathilda would be pleased with him now, with her dear uncle being tended so kindly. And… her father hoped she felt joy, wherever she was. That was all he could do.

He smiled through his tears.

A hand came up, gripped his shoulder, and Reid smiled wider still.

“She would be quite chuffed with you, Edmund. You know how she loved your tenderness.” Bennet laughed, and felt a spot of gaiety warm him for the first time in months. Immediately, he looked healthier and more hale for it. Bella danced in his blue eyes, never far from his mind: Perhaps she found that utopia promised her. Perhaps she felt truly loved, wherever she was. By him. By _something._

“…and exploited it,” said Edmund, the sound of his friend’s laughter as much a tonic to him as any concoction Jackson left behind for their use. Would that what they felt now could be carried on to the departed.

The thought of darling young Mathilda’s overtly manipulative efforts made them both laugh, until somehow they missed her slightly less and ever more at the same instant.

“You tell me I mustn’t carry the guilt, but… I cannot shake it. It hunts me,” the elder’s eyes turned sadly downward.

“Does it ache the same when you enact what it demands you do to yourself?”

“It does…”

“Then your bodily suffering is the only true difference, is it not? Let yourself heal. The ache might leave you, it might not, but if it isn’t quieted by your pain you have no cause to feed it any longer. Just… heal, Bennet.”

Bennet Drake, still entwined in the arms of the man who was once his superior officer, came back to life. He lifted the two syringes full of morphine off his own chest and let them fall to the ground.

At last, it was over.

The great fear Edmund had been living with for weeks and months was finally quelled. The vice upon his heart so long locked there it had become part of him relinquished its hold, such that he ended up with his head in his hands, breathing as though for the first time after long submersion. And beside him, Bennet did the same; they came up for air together. Baptism, rebirth, perhaps just simple _relief._

“I’m sorry, Edmund. I fear I’ve been a fool these past weeks… can you forgive me?”

“If you solemnly swear to me this is the last dredge of self-recrimination I must weather from you, then I _do_ believe I could manage it, yes.” Edmund had tired of Bennet’s apologies days before; tired of seeing of seeing a great man grovel for acceptance. Even then, fondness coloured his tone and a gentle smile remained etched in his features.

“…I suppose it is, then.”

The newly restored man smiled too, and no deck of clouds at the heavens could cloak the brightness that now ruled the sick room.

* * *

 

The rest of the afternoon fell away to companionable silence, with Reid having foraged his bookshelves for literature that might entertain someone bound abed for a long period of time. Someone like Drake, that was: no scientific journals but old case files, cold as the coastal winds in December. It would serve, until his former sergeant’s mind found new purpose.

Evening found candles lit around the room, patient and caregiver seated beside one another in the narrow bed, with patient held up by only the arm of his friend. It was a practical thing, of course, and if they both might revel in the warmth and closeness of another after months alone, they wouldn’t say.

The hapless and void man of a few hours prior was now animated, eagerly drinking herbal tea and thick broth; to dull the pains he still felt, to soothe his mind. He was _done_ suffering.

“It is good to see your senses returned to you, dear friend. With any luck we’ll be able to say the same of your strength within the fortnight!” glasses of tea were raised, and in the aftermath of the resounding clink everything was lighter and everything was better: for all the bad days surely yet ahead they would seize this day and make merry.

Talk lasted into the night, with the inspector happily filling Drake in on what had occurred in his lengthy absence, the cases which now threatened to bend his desk under their weight. He did not talk of how he hadn’t been at the station for more than a few stolen moments. Or of how, in the end, he came to prioritize Drake over his work. Perhaps even over the citizens of Whitechapel; there lay his own guilt, which had plagued him every second when it seemed Drake would not take his sacrifice, and only die under his gaze whilst others might still be saved.

Of course: now, _he_ was saved, and Reid felt no guilt. Whose life would be worth the whole of Whitechapel, if not that of a friend?

They talked of the well-wishes from every last soul in the station not currently jailed there, of Artherton’s outspoken eagerness to visit and ease his friend’s path to wellness by way of copious amounts of booze, and they talked about what Bennet might do next.

For all the goodwill within the walls of the station house, both men knew Sergeant Drake wasn’t going to walk its halls again. That life would not suit him, in the end. For all Reid would curb his every impulse and never again ask of him what he had in the past, the work would twist him against his will: make him cruel again. His master’s dog. That which offends life itself. Reid would not have him suffer so.

“I suppose I’ll get on a train,” was all Bennet could say.  

Reid nodded, though it grieved him to hear; knowing that somewhere he was alive would be better than thinking him among the dead or having to watch him die. This, at least, was still true.

\--------------- 

Late night saw the DI beside the bed again, and this time it _was_ a vigil: Not a deathbed, nor a wake begun before the subject had actually passed. He didn’t have to mourn Drake now; he could just pry the half-opened casefile from his limp fingers and leave him to his rest. The man didn’t even stir.

Under cover of night, Captain Jackson once again found his way to Edmund’s door. Up the stairs he went, without a word, and felt relief flooding him when he came upon the doorway.

Healing was never so much measured empirically as it was a feeling:

An _incredible_ feeling.

“Your quarrels are settled, then?” asserted the surgeon, striding further into the room as he spoke. He checked his patient’s vitals, noted the ease with which he slept and the empty bowl and cup perched dangerously on the bedside table.

“They are.” the syringes were returned to their rightful owner in a fluid motion.

“I’m glad to hear of it, Reid. _Don’t ever fucking steal from me again_.”

“I shan’t.”

Jackson spoke without true anger, Reid without even a token trace of regret.

Their eyes met, and they laughed quietly. Nearly bound in murder, and now they felt like saviours. God, tragedy could highlight the humour in everything; even bringing a man back to life by putting _death_ on the table.

“Did he keep it all down?” inquired the surgeon, moving to take a seat near the bedside where he could conduct a more thorough examination.

“He did. I did not burden him with much.” somehow, it seemed like a defeat to admit that this sick man was, in fact, a far cry from healthy. As though his progress might be slowed by the simple admission he had quite a way to go.

“Good. His appetite will increase as medicaments wane and periods of wakefulness grow longer: we must have patience. He _is_ going to get better, Reid.”

“I know.” and with that certainty to soothe him, Edmund went to his bed.

Morning saw the DI flung across it in an easy slumber whilst Jackson remained beside the wayward pugilist lain abed. But a single nightmare had plagued him this night, and when the Captain told him to calm down, he did. He supposed this meant Drake never actually left slumber, how otherwise would he be caught obeying orders from _him_ of all people.

Drake took his breakfast, thanked Jackson, insulted him, his clothing, most of his lifestyle choices and his preferred brand of cigarettes, and then thanked him once more.

So the days passed, until one day Drake spent more time awake than asleep and gradually reclaimed his mobility, pacing the parameters of the room on increasingly steady legs.

Soon, he attended his own personal hygiene, shaved himself, cut his overlong hair short at the shoulder. He would settle in the garden, with bare feet in the grass: toes courting ladybugs and buttercups. The sun warmed him there, until he was no longer so desperately pallid.

Artherton did indeed visit, as did a bottle of decent rum… whatever objection Jackson might have voiced against the alcohol intake of an invalid evaporated when he received an invitation to join them.

Drake and Jackson were, in fact… almost friends now. Or perhaps they were, and both would rather die than admit the simple fact.

Bennet became stronger, and when he was deemed capable of short outings Reid pressed a sizable handful of bills into his palm:  
His last payment. Reid had somehow forced the ringleader to pay him, after everything…

The weary fighter trembled as he took the funds, but used the ghost of his troubles to afford himself a new start: A few sets of fitting clothes, a trunk, a train ticket.

And when he left, two months after he was found deep in a hole in the earth, he did so as himself.

The farewell was fond, and ever painful, and inevitable:

The world beyond would serve this man better than Whitechapel ever could.

 ---------------

Edmund Reid stood on the train platform and watched Bennet Drake slide out of his life.

The man had not said whereto he was leaving, and Reid didn’t ask. It didn’t matter.

Drake been made anew; he was _alive._

He would write, or perhaps not, in fact; he might utterly disappear again.

But he _would_ feel joy, wherever he was. And that was enough.

  
**The End**


End file.
